Creative's Software Recovery Mode

Detach your player from the PC if it is connected, and turn off the player. (If the player stops responding, you can reset the player. To reset the player, gently insert a thin object into the Reset hole located below the power switch.)

Press and hold the Play button while powering on your player.

When the player displays the Creative logo, release the Play button.

It will display the following options

Clean Up: Scans the player and removes invalid links from its music library. Does not affect music files themselves.

Reload OS/ Firmware: Caution! Erases your player's firmware. DO NOT select the Reload Firmware option unless you have access to a PC and you have downloaded the necessary firmware to install.

Reboot: Reboots the device.

SigmaTel's Hardware Recovery Mode

Like the other STMP3xxx players, the Zen V has a built-in hardware recovery mode which presents itself as a Player Recovery Device Class with the proper drivers installed. Normally this mode can be accessed by holding a button while connecting to USB, but I tried many different combinations and couldn't find one. Then, after reading a ton of forum posts about the recovery mode showing itself after people screwed up their batteries, I thought I'd try simply removing it and it did indeed connect in recovery mode. Perhaps there is another way, and in the meantime we have no use for this, but now we know how to get to it if required.